Contract: MJ doc requested lifesaving gear, nurse
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The doctor charged in Michael Jackson’s death had requested lifesaving gear and a nurse from the concert promoter organising the singer’s London shows, documents obtained by The Associated Press show.
But neither request was apparently in place when Jackson died last June 25 after Dr Conrad Murray administered a mixture of sedatives, including the extremely powerful anesthetic propofol, in an attempt to get the chronic insomniac to sleep. The doctor has pleaded not guilty to an involuntary manslaughter charge in Jackson’s death.
His proposed contract with promoter AEG Live, which included a monthly fee of $150,000 was not finalised before the singer’s death. Murray never received payment for his services.
The request for a heart resuscitation machine and another person with medical training are revealed in e-mails and a contract drafted by AEG Live and sent to Murray. The documents are included in a complaint filed by Jackson’s father, Joe, to the California Medical Board against AEG Live, accusing the promoter of Jackson’s comeback This Is It tour of engaging in the “unlawful practice of corporate medicine”.
Michael Roth, an AEG spokesman, said the company had not seen the complaint and could not comment on it nor the contract. The complaint states Murray signed the document a day before Michael Jackson’s death.
An e-mail sent to Murray during the negotiations explained a delay in the contract’s drafting because it was a “rare event” for a physician to be hired to care for a singer on tour.
In his complaint, Joe Jackson accuses the promoter of agreeing to pay Murray vastly more than he was making so that it could exert control over his medical decisions.